Oasis: The Music of Gregg Hill (out November 18th, 2022) is the third album co-produced by Rodney Whitaker and composer Gregg Hill.
The first album, Common Ground was released in 2019 (Origin Records) featuring the same talented artists as Oasis. The second album, Outrospection (Origin Records 2021) featured Xavier Davis, Dana Hall, Randy Gelispie, Rockelle Whitaker, Etienne Charles, Michael Dease, Diego Rivera, Marcus Eliot and Randy Napoleon.
1. Betty’s Tune (4:56)
2. Puppets (7:34)
3. Minorabilia (6:28)
4. Interlude (6:07)
5. Sunday Afternoon (7:24)
6. The Jazzdiddy Waltz (4:46)
7. S’Cool Days (8:25)
8. Blues for Gregg (6:40)
9. Fan-O-Gram (7:44)
10. To the Well (7:18)
11. Oasis (5:16)
This beautifully-crafted and spiritually impassioned new album opens on the gently frenetic rhythms within Betty’s Tune and the soothingly laid back, late melodies of Puppets and backs those up with the almost cinematic scrawl of Minorabilia, the ornately comforting Interlude and then comes the finger-snapping melodies of Sunday Afternoon.
Along next is the simply mesmerizingly-crafted The Jazzdiddy Waltz and the veritably swashbuckling S’Cool Days and they are in turn followed seamlessly by the free flowing Blues for Gregg, the dutiful, studious even Fan-O-Gram, the album rounding out on the atmospherically crystalline To the Well, closing on the feelgood Oasis.
Michigan based composer Gregg Hill has published 145 original jazz compositions across 4 volumes: Outrospectives, Spontaneity, Moonducks and The Tuning Fork. Ten albums have been released featuring the compositions.
Musicians:
TERELL STAFFORD trumpet and flugelhorn
TIM WARFIELD tenor and soprano saxophones
BRUCE BARTH piano
RODNEY WHITAKER bass
DANA HALL drums
ROCKELLE FORTIN vocals (1,4,10,11)
www.rodneywhitaker.com
www.GreggHillJazz.com
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